


and all the people say she’s better than melusine by far

by llassah



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Banshee Powers, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Resurrection, Water
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-31
Updated: 2015-03-31
Packaged: 2018-03-20 15:24:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3655314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/llassah/pseuds/llassah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>The water is cold and black. No moon in the sky tonight, though the stars shine in bright swathes. They cast pinpricks of light on the surface of the lake, which turn to shimmers on the water as she swims. She’s a long way from the shore. She lit a lantern and put it on the pier by the lakehouse to guide her home, but she doesn’t look back, not even to see how far she’s come. She doesn’t know how far she has to go, but she knows she has to get there.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	and all the people say she’s better than melusine by far

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you Laisserais, for making such beautiful and inspiring artworks ([the original art](http://allydiareversebang.tumblr.com/post/118135092311/title-and-all-people-say-shes-better-than), [a fanmix](http://laisserais.tumblr.com/post/118144972073/melusine-an-allydia-fanmix-by-laisserais-made), and [a gorgeous cover](http://laisserais.tumblr.com/post/118144911588/i-made-a-cover-for-llassahs-fic-and-all-the)! I'm so lucky!) and Giddygeek, for being such a fantastic beta.

The water is cold and black. No moon in the sky tonight, though the stars shine in bright swathes. They cast pinpricks of light on the surface of the lake, which turn to shimmers on the water as she swims. She’s a long way from the shore. She lit a lantern and put it on the pier by the lakehouse to guide her home, but she doesn’t look back, not even to see how far she’s come. She doesn’t know how far she has to go, but she knows she has to get there.

Lydia should have told someone she was going to do this. Scott, maybe, or Stiles. They would have said no, though, would have tried to stop her, unwilling to lose more than they already have. Derek might have helped her, or might have understood the loss, the feeling that she would do anything, anything, that no price was too big to pay. But she didn’t say a word.

She drove to the shore, let her dress fall to the stones where the water lapped, stepped out of her shoes and walked. She walked, and kept walking, the cold water taking away her breath as it reached her calves, knees, thighs, cunt, breasts, every new depth a keen shock.

No one knows how deep the lake is. There used to be an island right in the center. Her grandmother used to row out there in the summer. She used to take her boyfriends out there in her little boat. They’d light a fire and lay together out under the stars, with the deep, still waters around them. Her grandmother never told her where the island went. Maybe it sunk. Maybe it was never there, but on a clear day, you can see what could—could—be an island, a darker shape deep, deep beneath the water, the dead trees swaying.

Lydia keeps swimming. Her hair wraps around her neck, snaking about her throat and trailing out behind her. It feels as if she is being dragged back, held back, but she won’t stop, not for anyone, not until she knows it’s time. She didn’t leave a note, figured it was better to ask forgiveness than permission, and—it might not work. Better not to leave anyone else with that dreadful hope.

Something, maybe a particular shimmer on the lake, maybe a whisper just at the edge of her hearing, pulls at her. A gentle tug, down, down into the water. And God help her, she takes a deep, deep breath, and dives.

She keeps her eyes closed tight shut against the rush of cold water. Her lungs are burning already even though she’s only just gone under, churning the water as she struggles to get upside down. She’s always been a graceless swimmer, always a little wary of being underwater. Now, there isn’t a thing she can do about it but go deeper, deeper. A bubble of air escapes from her mouth as she almost gasps, and she can feel it rolling along her body as it races to the surface. She wants to follow it, wants so many things, but she’s got a hole in her chest where her heart should be and Allison, God, Allison. She’d drown a hundred times over to forget she ever screamed for her.

Deeper. There are iron bands around her chest. When she opens her eyes, all she sees is black, pressing in from all sides. She can’t even see her hands. She keeps going. Keeps going. Nowhere to go but down.

At first, it’s a brush. Just a brush on her hand that she almost dismisses outright, but then there’s another touch on her leg, down her side and she’s looking around, thrashing, frantic. Air escapes from her mouth as she forgets that she can’t make a sound. Then, there are hands everywhere, all over her, grasping at her as she thrashes, pulling her down, down. Their nails are sharp in their clammy fingers and she can’t help it, she screams, high and piercing, loud even in the water and they scatter away like ripples, swift as light.

Her hand touches something warm. Another hand, but this one doesn’t grab, doesn’t have talons, doesn’t pinch and draw blood. She laces their fingers together, and then, with a quick prayer to anything that might be listening, she turns back to the surface and swims, her burden dragging behind her.

There’s no moon to guide her to the surface, and her burden is heavy, too heavy for her to lift, but she has to, and she can, she knows she can. She has steel inside her, a core of it. Whatever else she has, she has this. Steel inside her, iron pushing at her lungs, and nothing but black in front of her, black behind her.

The air is warm when she breaks the surface. She heaves in breaths, the water burning her throat, her nose. She can’t stop gasping, choking, feels as if she is still underwater. She holds on tight, and kicks, her feet breaking the surface sometimes, the splashes loud in the night. She swims towards the light.

She doesn’t notice her shadow at first. Something swims beside her. She turns quickly, nearly swallowing a mouthful of water as she gasps. A wolf, keeping pace with her, muzzle almost down to the water, paws barely making any ripples. “Were you—were you down there?” she asks. The wolf turns, eyes flashing red and her heart lurches, that lizardbrain fear taking over. “I don’t—I don’t mean any harm. I just want her back.”

All she wants. But that alone is impossible. The wolf lets out a quiet growl, swims closer. Lydia grips Allison’s hand tighter, not sure what the wolf is going to do. The wolf just nudges her, once, her fur sleek against Lydia’s bare skin, then swims away to where the shore meets the forest, black melding into black. She feels like she should say goodbye, wish the wolf luck. She stays quiet, keeps swimming. When she gets to the lantern, she looks behind her, now that the light is enough to see by. Allison’s skin is pale, her hair an inky black, trailing behind her in the water. Her eyes are closed and she looks peaceful, asleep but not dead. There is some spark there, something that puts a bloom in her cheeks, that makes her grip strong.

Lydia wants to say something, something to mark this. But no one knows she’s here, no one knows what she’s done, so there’s no fanfare, no declaration. Just a stumbling walk up some slippery steps, Allison heavy and warm in her arms, breathing softly against her neck. Just a set of wet footprints through an empty lakehouse and a dress left on the shore.

*

That first night, as she lies exhausted on a bare mattress, hair dripping on the floor, she holds onto Allison’s wrist, her thumb against Allison’s pulse. She refuses to sleep, even when the sky outside turns a dull gray and the birds start to call to each other. She stays awake through the sunrise, watches the dappled light change through the window through the day, ignoring the insistent demands of her own body. For Allison to wake up, when she was gone, or worse, for her to slip away once more—

The thing is, she has no idea what a banshee is meant to do. Not really. She knows what she does, and what she hears and feels, but she has no idea of what she should be able to do. The best and most terrible thing about this, of course, is that she knows no limits. She brought her best friend back from the dead because no one told her she couldn’t.

In the distance, she hears a howl that sends shivers rushing through her, her body turning hot then cold at the sound, the power behind it. Another howl. They might come here, once their joy has given way to that old Hale mistrust of good fortune. She sits up with a groan, scrubbing at her face. Flakes of dirt fall off to the floor.

There are bedrooms upstairs, but it feels—she wants to be close to the water, away from the machine, from the signs of what happened in this house. So she has a mattress, and some bedsheets, and she covers Allison in one to keep her warm, wears the other like a robe. Her dress is still on the shoreline. She’ll pick it up soon. Allison is warm and still beside her, breathing softly. Lydia holds on, and doesn’t let go.

The wolves come at dusk, just as the sun is about to set. They pad around the lake, scratch at the door. “Use your hands,” she calls out, stroking the hair back from Allison’s forehead. She sits up, pulls the sheet tighter around her. There’s a pause, and the door opens, then there’s the clacking of claws on the ground, soft panting. They’re both damp from the forest and the lake, seedheads and briars caught in their fur. Blood on their muzzles.

Wolves can’t ask questions. Or she thought they couldn’t, but the wolf with the red eyes—Laura; she feels it in her soul—tilts her head and just looks at Lydia. She’s on the point of spilling her secrets, unburdening her soul with just that look. Derek, his eye glowing a cold blue, just watches, all patience. She draws herself up, haughty as a queen. “You’re welcome,” she tells them, then she turns back to Allison. She knows Laura can smell her fear, knows it, but she’s been afraid for a long, long time, in a thousand different ways, so she ignores it, ignores them both. Laura comes in close and sniffs her delicately, so close her fur brushes against the sheet. Then she looks at Allison, head tilted again. Derek pads over, presses his nose to Allison’s hand where it lies on the sheet, palm up.

“She’s mine; you can’t take her,” she says, but Laura is strong, strong enough to break bones, teeth sharp enough to tear flesh. Her words feel fragile.

When she was a little girl, she was fascinated by the Hales. They had a glamor about them, something a little other. And they were always together, never alone, them against the world. She was a solitary child, lonely, too clever for the other children and too naïve to hide it. When she played in the woods, it was alone, in secret.

She had whole worlds to herself, but she looked at them all, the Hales, with their loud parties, their green-eyed children, their house in the preserve, and she yearned. People talked about them, as people do. She asked her grandmother about them one day, about their otherness, the rumors about them. She had smiled, tucked a strand of hair behind Lydia’s ear. “They’re Hales, sweetheart. They’ve always been like that, always will be. They won’t hurt you though,” she had added, and Lydia had never known quite why. Then—it had been a lie anyway. A false promise.

“You can’t have her,” she says again.

Both wolves ignore her, nosing at Allison’s sides, up to her hair, her throat. She doesn’t stir, even with danger so close, even when they settle down either side of her, heavy on the mattress, jostling her with their weights. Not even the flicker of an eyelash.

“You can’t stay,” she says, but they can and they will.

*

The moon is just a crescent. She can see it through the window if she cranes her head. Here, down by the water in the boathouse, it’s low in the air, low enough to touch. She’s put on her dress, still damp from the shore. Both the wolves left as soon as the sun set and the moon rose. She’s left wearing a muddy dress, her hair tangled, a bottle of wine in her hand, the decking smooth under her bare feet.

She’ll have to leave here soon. She’s told ten lies to ten different people to stop them from looking for her. They’ll only hold for so long before someone works out where she is, or Derek tells, or Scott sees Laura or catches Allison’s scent, and then. Then there are lectures on the laws of the living, on misusing her gifts. Everyone will forget that Peter is alive, that no one ever asked her about any of this. She looks through the bottle, at the sliver of moon. She could open it, forget for a little while. The bottle has condensation on the outside, and she idly draws on it with her finger. A swirl, then a heart. An arrow.

She asked Chris for one of Allison’s arrowheads, before he left, and he gave it freely, grim, generous man that he is. She carries it everywhere, keeps it in her pocket. When she's thinking, she plays with the sharp edge, rubs the flat surface with her thumb until the cold metal is warm to the touch. The weight is a comfort.

She holds onto it now as she pads back in, the wine bottle clasped loosely in her other hand, the sharp edge just pressing onto her finger.

The arrowhead is warm when she puts it into Allison’s hand, closes her fingers around it. The floor is cold on her knees. “You made this. Remember? You wanted to do things right. To make things better, to atone for your family. And you, God, you’re too young to take on that burden, but you did. And maybe—maybe it was your time, maybe—all that talk of a meaningful death. As if it makes a difference. He killed my Grandma. Murdered her. She was-- she was so scared. All you are is dead, and people force it to mean something. Just to make it easier for them somehow. But I just—I want to see you again. I want you here, because all your death means at the moment is—is that you’re gone.”

She muffles her sobs, even though she’s alone, bites down on her knuckles, as if it could ever keep the sound in. A wailing woman. That’s what the books call her.

Her chest hurts with it; it’s as if she’s drowning again, iron crushing down on her lungs. She’s helpless: strong enough to bring Allison back, but too weak to keep her. So she wails, and sobs, and lets her tears fall until the iron is looser, and she can breathe a little easier.

It’s an oddly clean feeling, when she stops crying. Like a weight is gone, her chest hollowed out. She scrubs at her face with the bedsheet, sparing a thought for Jackson, for how disgusted he’d be with her right now. She hasn’t washed the lakewater off, or the dirt between her toes. Her hair is heavy with dirt, too, tangled so badly that she can’t even run her fingers all the way through it.

“We can wash in the lake when you wake up, sweetheart. Get ready to face the world.”

She strokes Allison’s air back from her forehead, her heart aching, swelling with something too tender to name. She leans over, kisses her forehead, whispers “sweet dreams,” and wonders when someone last said that to her.

At first, she doesn’t really register it. Just a twitch of a finger—her bow finger. A frown, smoothed out in seconds. Lydia holds her breath, afraid to blink, to even move in case she breaks the spell. She watches, rapt, as Allison blooms like a flower unfolding, eyelashes fluttering, lips parted, and finally—

When Allison’s eyes open, she’s smiling. It’s like coming home.

*

“I was—it feels like the end of a dream, when it all slips away from you. It feels like it’s on the tip of my tongue.” Allison breaks off with a helpless shrug.

Lydia doesn’t ask if she was happy in the dream, or at peace, because she’s always been selfish, and she doesn’t believe in regret. She just stares at Allison, almost too afraid to blink. The only thing she can say is “I missed you,” and it settles between them, heavy as a promise.

They’re both wearing sheets, wrapped around them. They’re getting grubby, streaked with mud from the lake, dirt from the floor. They eat squares of chocolate, the crumbs falling onto the mattress, melting on their bare feet. They pass the bottle of wine to each other, taking sips from the bottle until their lips are wet with it, fingers cold and damp with condensation from the bottle.

Lydia talks, about Meredith, her grandma. About the house, the lake, the whirring machines and the whispers in her head that are starting to sound more and more distinct. It feels like a confession. Maybe the Argents used to hunt banshees. Maybe people need protection from her. Maybe the words pouring from her will condemn her one day. At the moment, she’s just Lydia, telling her best friend, her _sister_ , all the things she’s had to keep in her heart for so long.

By the time she puts the bottle down, her lips are numb but her heart is light. There’s a soft breeze rolling across the water, cutting through the warmth of the evening. They walk out to the lake together, hand in hand. Allison tried wearing her sheet at first, but she tripped as she tried to walk, her legs still a little shaky. She dropped it with a huff, shrugging when Lydia raised her eyebrows. Then Lydia had dropped the sheet and her dress, too, emboldened by the wine and the challenge in Allison’s eyes. Lydia guides her over the rocks and into the water, both of them gasping at the cold shock of it. She’s lit a lantern again, just in case, puts it on the pier to guide them back.

“This feels weirdly like home,” Allison says as the water laps at their knees. “I could be part mermaid, right?”

“I think mermaids are kind of all or nothing,” she says. Allison is pale in the moonlight, all long lines and curves. She’s beautiful, in a way that hurts to look at for too long. “They have to choose.”

“Lake or land,” Allison says, her voice seeming to come from somewhere far away. Lydia’s fingers tighten on hers, because they’re not talking about lakes any more. Maybe they never were.

“I don’t regret it,” she says. “I could never regret it. I’d—I’d burn down the whole world, for you. You’re my friend.”

Allison’s lips are soft, a little chapped. She kisses gently, with her eyes closed. She kisses like she’s smiling still. Even though she’s the one with the bow and the knives, Lydia feels suddenly, fiercely protective of her. They wade in, deeper and deeper, trading kisses as they walk, the cold water lapping at their skin. Every fresh depth makes them gasp with the shock of it, until they’re treading water. Only the shimmering outlines of their hands and arms show in the black lake.

“We could—come here,” Allison whispers, draws her in close, presses their bodies together. Lydia can’t tell where one of them ends and the other begins. It feels as if she is using Allison to breathe, gasping between kisses as they stay afloat, drifting as the water caresses them.

Allison tastes sweet, her kisses flavored with wine and chocolate. Lydia can’t stop moving, can’t stop trying to get closer, to get more. She ruts up against Allison’s thigh, clumsy with need, gasping as Allison keeps them afloat. Allison's leg flexes as she kicks and for a brief second it’s almost too much, almost enough to get her off. It feels like she’s discovering her body all over again, her arousal hazy, indistinct.

She can’t stop touching Allison, learning her. All that soft skin is cool to the touch, smooth under her hands as water rushes over her fingers. Allison touches back, a little surer. Allison’s fingers are callused, catch at Lydia's skin as her thumb grazes her nipple, the skin on the underside of her breast. They can’t see each other’s bodies; they navigate by touch, by hitched breaths, soft words.

“God, I want to—I want to taste, to lick you,” she blurts out. Allison swears, shudders.

“Wash your mouth out,” Allison says, eyes dancing, and oh, there are those dimples again, that wicked smile. It makes her feel like they can do anything together, anything they want. They link hands, stumble towards the shore, to the light that flickers by the lakehouse, laughing, breathless. They nearly fall, drunk on each other.

They drag their sheets, her dress, in and let them lie on the threshold as they drip through the house to their nest. There is some wine still left in the bottle and they share it between kisses, pass the bottle back and forth as they sit on the mattress. The wine feels warm now, after the cold of the lake.

Lydia grows braver. She slips her hand between Allison’s thighs, fingers just brushing the hair there. Allison lets her legs drop open, props herself up on her elbows. She looks like an invitation, a challenge. Her skin is damp, the dark curls covering her cunt glistening in the dim light. At first, Allison tastes like lakewater, cool and clean. She strokes Lydia’s hair, gentle, as Lydia learns the shape of her, eager to please. Lydia’s face is getting sticky with her slick, her lips and chin smeared with it. Her cunt is hot around Lydia’s fingers, a tight clench, gripping then releasing her as Lydia crooks and moves them. She's clumsy at first, learns a rhythm that Allison moves into, hips rolling. Her hand stays gentle on Lydia’s hair.

Lydia is rutting up against the mattress, the edge of it catching her clit just right as her toes dig into the floor for purchase. She feels like she’s coming apart, like she wants to be everywhere at once. Allison’s breaths are turning to gasps, her body arching and flexing then finally, finally slumping boneless to the mattress. Her cunt flutters around Lydia’s fingers, beneath her tongue. Lydia gentles her through it, slowing the movement of her fingers as she comes down. She laps at her as her breathing slows and she stops trembling with aftershocks.

Then, as Allison watches, eyes half-lidded, Lydia fucks herself with the heel of her hand, three fingers just inside her cunt, until her wrist cramps and she thinks she’ll never get there, and—

“It’s okay. Slow down,” Allison soothes, pulls her so she’s cradled between Allison’s legs, leaning back against her. “Now try again,” she murmurs, but this time, it’s Allison’s fingers that circle her clit, rubbing just above it in tight circles.

The angle—this is how Allison does it, this is what she does. It’s that thought that she clings to as she closes her eyes, pumping her fingers in and out, faster until she comes, her head knocking back against Allison’s shoulder as she convulses. “There you go,” Allison murmurs, kisses the side of her head. “There you go,” she says, stroking Lydia’s hair as she shivers, spent and sated. “I’ve got you.” Lydia nestles in close, and they shuffle down the mattress, tugging a sheet so that it covers them, their tangle of limbs. They breathe together in the dim light until sleep takes them.

The wolves come at some point in the night. Neither of them wakes, not even when they slump down on the mattress, fur brushing their bare skin where the sheet doesn’t cover them. The wolves come, maybe to guard them. And when they wake, they aren’t afraid. Lydia twines her fingers through the thick fur on her wolf’s neck, smiling at the steady thud of its tail on the mattress.

Allison stirs, opens one eye, closes it again. Her foot swishes lazily back and forth on the mattress, a counterpoint to the thudding tail. Her hair is a tangled nest, her eyes scrunched tight shut. Her feet are grubby, ankles streaked with mud. She looks wild, as if she belongs in the forest, as if she has strayed from there. She looks as if she could be dragged back there at any moment. Lydia reaches out, takes her hand. Joins their fingers together. Holds on tight, and doesn’t let go.

“I remember your hand,” Allison murmurs. “Your hand in mine, and jaws around my ankle, teeth digging into my skin. It’s the first thing I knew. Before that, I couldn’t breathe. Then you were there, and I, I could—”

Allison is crying. Lydia doesn’t know how to make her stop, so she tangles her fingers through Allison’s hair, hums to her like her grandma used to. Old songs, with words that used to make her sad. She’s horrible at this. It makes something prickle in her skin, makes her feel helpless in a way little else does.

“—je te plumerais,” Allison whispers, voice hoarse, choked. “It’s the song you were humming. Grandmere used to sing it to us. It’s – God, it’s a horrible song when you listen to it.” She laughs wetly, sniffles, her face blotchy.

“Mine used to sing about two cats who fought, and I think they both died? And there was a song about the sly fox catching me if I didn’t sleep.”

“How did we ever go to sleep?” Allison swipes at her eyes with the back of her hand.

“We were too scared not to.”

Her chest eases as Allison smiles, something in her soul settling, contented. “I’m glad you’re here,” she says. Allison’s smile is the most beautiful thing in the world.

They go out to the lake once more. The wolves splash on the shoreline, disappearing into the trees every so often. They watch the sun rising, dappling the water and lighting up the mist over the lake. This is how they end up: sitting side by side on the jetty, toes trailing in the water, their fingers twined together, neither letting go.

 


End file.
